917.73 


1907 


itc/rtf 


I 


FERRYMAN 


BY 


F.  M.  FERRYMAN 


KERR'S  PRINTING  HOUSE, 

PANA,   ILLINOIS. 

1907. 


Copyrighted 


F.  M.  Ferryman. 
All  rights  reserved. 


N    presenting   this   little   book   to   the 
public,    the    author  would  not  dare  to 
claim  perfection,  for  to  err  is    human, 
but  we  have  sought  to  give  the  conditions 
as  they  existed  in  this  country  in  early  days,  and 
we  have  not  sought  to  display  style  or  learning, 
but  we  have  sought  to  give  the  little  book  the 
same  tone  and  as  near  in  the  same  language  that 
we  used  in  early  days  as  prudence  will  allow, 
I  and  we  will  leave  the  reader  to  judge  of  the  merits 
VJ  of  the  little  book  for  himself;  and  we  hope  the  good 
^  people  will  pardon  any  errors   they    may  find. 
0  We  hope  you  will  be  interested  in  the  reading  of 
^it,  and  if  some  thoughts  are  presented  which  will 
^prepare  the  readers  the  better  for  the  battles  of 
Jlife   and  for   usefulness  to  others,  then  we  are 
^  well  repaid  for  all  our  trouble. 

THE;  AUTHOR. 


12 


E  believe  as  the  Author  of  this  book 
is  so  well  known  through  this  part  of 
the  country  it  would  hardly  be  neces- 
sary to  write  much  of  an  introduction;  but  by 
being  solicited  by  friends  who  had  learned  that 
we  were  born  and  raised  here  in  Illinois,  we 
consented  to  do  so;  Mr.  Chalfant  first  spoke  of  it 
then  many  others. 

You  will  find  the  little  book  entirely  original, 
nothing  borrowed,  and  what  you  find  herein 
that  is  good  or  bad,  is  our  own  production.  The 
book  does  not  take  sides  in  party  politics  or 
church  denominations,  but  the  Author  has  given 
some  of  his  own  thoughts  on  different  questions. 


N  early  days  we  had  a  great  deal  of  hard 
|  111  work  to  clear  the  land  and  then  to  make 

and  keep  up  the  rail  fences;  and  it  took 
four  times  the  work  to  raise  a  corn  crop  as  it  does 
now;  and  it  took  four  times  the  work  to  cut  the 
firewood  as  it  does  now;  and  it  took  so  much 
work  to  prepare  the  material  and  make  the  cloth- 
ing. So  the  pioneers  had  to  keep  pretty  busy; 
and  when  the  corn  was  in  roasting-ear  we  had 
to  watch  it  pretty  closely  for  the  squirrels  in  the 
day-time,  and  the  coons  in  the  night  would 
destroy  a  great  deal  of  it,  and  later  on  if  it  was 
not  gathered  early  the  deer  and  the  turkeys  and 
prairie-chickens  would  eat  it  up. 


0  cc  upatio-H  3-. 


[N  pioneer  days  after  the  corn  was  laid 
by,  as  we  called  it,  then  we  had  a  while 
that  we  did  not  work  much.  There 
was  not  much  harvesting  to  do,  as  our 
hay  harvest  was  in  the  prairie  grass,  and  that 
was  done  late  in  August  or  September,  and 
during  this  idle  spell  the  men  would  hunt  and 
fish,  and  those  that  did  not  have  plenty  of  bees 
would  hunt  "bee  trees",  and  get  hone}7  to  do 
them  for  the  year. 

The  boys  would  go  into  the  woods  and  dig 
Ginseng;  and  when  we  would  dry  it  we  got 
twenty-five  cents  per  pound,  and  when  we  sold 
it  green  we  got  ten  cents  per  pound,  and  a  boy 
could  make  good  wages  for  them  times. 


15 


|T  was  Eighty  Years  Ago,  in  the  wild 
woods,  on  Mitchell's  Creek,  near  a  good 
spring,  JACOB  FERRYMAN,  the  father  of 
the  author  of  this  little  book,  pitched 
his  cabin.  He  was  of  Scotch  descent,  and  my 
MOTHER  was  of  German  descent;  they  raised  a 
large  family,  of  wThich  we  was  the  sixth. 

The  writer  was  born  April  26th,  1836,  and 
raised  there  when  it  was  almost  impossible  for  a 
boy  to  get  an  education;  but  he  was  supposed  to 
risk  his  chances  writh  the  wolf  and  the  rattle- 
snake, and  all  the  dangers  seen  and  unseen  of 
that  early  day.  So  you  see  the  writer  has  lived 
in  Illinois  more  than  three  score  and  ten  years, 
and  if,  in  speaking  of  my  native  State,  we  spread 
the  "paint"  on  pretty  thick,  you  will  pardon  us. 


i6 

Maybe  we  have  enjoyed  life  more  than  the  most 
of  people  have,  and  if  the  reader  of  this  book 
finds  that  the  tone  of  it  shows  too  much  of  a 
disposition  for  mirth,  remember  it  is  our  nature 
and  we  cannot  help  it,  and  we  attribute  it  to  our 
raising.  The  man  who  lives  in  Illinois  and  don't 
enjoy  life  is  a  man  who  does  not  know  a  good 
thing  when  he  has  it.  The  man  who  lives  in 
Illinois  and  does  not  see  beauties  on  every  hand 
to  make  him  glad,  is  mentally  cross-eyed. 


17 

o  dcp. 

WANT  to  sing  a  little  song, 

Of  the  people  and  their  ways; 
And  how  the  people  got  along 

Away  back  in  early  days. 
We  rather  thought  the  quickest  way 

To  let  the  people  know, — 
We  would  sing  to  them 

Of  how  wre  lived, 
Just  Sixty  Years  Ago. 

When  coon-skins  was  two  bits  apiece, 

And  beeswax  was  a  bit, 
And  eggs  four  cents  a  dozen — 

That  was  all' that  we  could  get; 
And  deer-skins  always  went  at  par, 

And  feathers  was  not  slow; 
And  that's  the  money  people  had 

Just  Sixty  Years  Ago. 

And,  Oh!  that  big  old  fire-place, — 

It  took  a  sight  of  wood ; 
We  would  haul  it  on  a  "lizzard" — 

And  we  would  pile  on  all  we  could; 
We  would  haul  a  big  long  hickory  log, 

Especially  when  there  was  snow;— 
For  we  worked  twro  yoke  of  cattle  then; — 

Just  Sixty  Years  Ago. 


18 


The  school  house  was  of  elm  logs — 

The  bark  was  all  left  on; 
I  never  saw  no  other  kind 

Till  I  was  nearly  grown. 
The  children  got  some  learning, 

But,  of  course,  it  was  rather  slow; — 
My!  how  the  teacher  "licked"  the  "kids" 

Just  Sixty  Years  Ago. 

And  when  it  came  to  raising  corn, 

We  did  not  get  much  rest 
For  the  want  of  tools  to  work  with, 

We  had  to  do  our  best. 
We  plowed  with  wooden  mouldboard  plows 

And  our  lines  were  made  of  tow; 
And  that's  the  kind  of  tools  we  had 

Just  Sixty  Years  Ago. 

And  when  the  people  went  to  church 

They  always  wore  their  best; 
They  wore  their  home-made  pantaloons — 

I  hate  to  tell  the  rest. 
The  girls  wore  striped  dresses, 

And  the  boys  wore  shirts  of  tow; — 
And  that's  the  \\ay  the  people  dressed 

Just  Sixty  Years  Ago. 


We  did  not  care  for  stocks  or  bonds, 

They  were  not  in  our  line; — 
But,  if  we  wanted  whiskey, 

We  got  it  every  time. 
The  boys  could  bake  the  "johnnycake" 

And  the  girls  knew  how  to  mow; 
Oh!  was  not  we  a,  "jolly  set?" 

Just  Sixty  Years  Ago. 


20 


n 


|N  traveling  over  the  great  fertile  prairie 
State  of  Illinois,  and  viewing  its  many 
railroads,  its  many  beautiful  cities  and 
towns,  its  school  houses,  its  churches, 
its  broad  fields  of  waving  grain,  its  orchards 
bending  under  their  load  of  golden  fruit,  its  vast 
population  of  industrious  and  intelligent  citizens, 
its  mills,  and  its  factories,  one  can  hardly  realize 
that  nearly  all  of  this  great  improvement  has 
been  made  in  the  last  sixty  years,  but  such  is 
the  case.  Sixty  years  ago  these  prairies  were  an 
unbroken  howling  wilderness,  where  the  wolf 
and  deer  roamed  at  will  and  raised  their  young 
unmolested,  and  where  the  rattlesnake  was  in 
his  glory.  The  pioneer  had  unknowingly  blazed 
the  way  for  what  was  to  come;  he  did  not  seem 
to  know  that  these  wild  prairies  was  soon  to 
become  the  garden  spot  of  the  world. 


21 


|*  T 


ic 


better  class  of  citizeils  has  ever  lived 

*n  Shelby  county,  or  ever  will  live  in 
Shelby  county,  than  the  early  settlers; 
the  Rasey's,  the  Hall's,  the  Pugh's, 
the  Corley's,  the  Rhoades',the  Wakefield's,  the 
Small's,  the  Middlesworth's,  the  Collier's,  the 
Yant's,  the  Smith's,  the  Warren's,  the  Whit- 
field's,  theNeal's,  the  Killam's,  the  Douthit's, 
and  many  others  that  we  could  name,  who  were 
just  as  good.  The  writer  feels  proud  of  the 
memory  of  such  people,  and  while  the  most  of 
them  have  passed  away,  we  thank  God  that  such 
men  and  women  have  lived  in  the  wrorld  to  make 
our  pathway  brighter,  and  make  the  world  better. 
And  where  you  find  one  of  those  early  settlers 
you  find  a  man  whose  love  for  his  friends  can 
hardly  be  severed;  a  love  so  true,  so  deep,  so 
loyal,  so  God-like  that  if  they  possessed  no  other 
good  trait  that  one  trait  alone  makes  them  noble. 


22 


iOTWITHSTANDING  the  many  dis- 
advantages of  the  pioneer  life,  there 
was  a  charm  in  it  which  none  can 
describe;  and  an  old  man  who  was 
here  in  early  days  almost  feels  like  he  wants  to 
go  back  and  live  his  boyhood  days  over  in  the 
wild  new  country,  where  everything  was  so  near 
like  nature  formed  it;  he  wants  to  see  the  wild 
animals  gallop  over  the  hills;  he  wants  to  hear 
the  howl  of  the  wolf;  he  wants  to  hear  the  cry  of 
the  hounds  when  pursuing  the  deer  or  the  wolf; 
he  wants  to  hear  the  gobble  of  the  wild  turkey 
in  the  spring-time;  "he  wants  to  see  the  prairies 
covered  with  wild  flowers  of  all  colors;  he  wants 
to  hear  the  crack  of  the  rifle  that  brings  down 
the  deer  or  turkey;  he  wants  to  hear  the  "pop" 
of  the  whip  as  the  "big  brother"  comes  up  the 
hill  with  his  two  yoke  of  faithful  cattle  and  their 


23 

big  load  of  hickory  wood;  he  wants  to  hear  the 
thud  of  the  flax-brake  and  the  hum  of  the  spin- 
ning wheel. 

Oh!  carry  us  back  to  the  plain  simple  life 

In  the  log  cabin,  let  us  see 
The  roaring  log  fire  in  the  big  fireplace 

Where  the  dove  of  peace  hovers 
Over  the  hearthstone  and  delights 

In  the  rewards  of  industry  and  virtue. 


Ikifl. 


|IXTY  years  ago  there  was  a  law  in 
Illinois  that  all  able-bodied  men  from 
the  age  of  18  to  45  should  meet  and 
drill  as  soldiers  every  alternate  Sat- 
urday, from  the  first  Saturday  in  April  till  the 
third  Saturday  in  November.  And  they  muster- 
ed at  my  father's  every  time.  John  L.  Ferryman, 
my  cousin,  was  Captain,  a  large,  tall  young  man, 
with  a  powerful  voice;  we  could  hear  him  give 
the  commands  very  plainly  for  two  hundred 
yards.  He  wore  a  stove-pipe  hat,  with  his  long 
red  plume  stuck  in  his  hat,  and  he  looked  nice 
and  I  think  he  felt  big.  Ben.  Tallman  wras 
Orderly  Sergeant.  I  think  there  was  about  one 
hundred  men  in  our  precinct;  and  when  Ben. 
would  call  the  roll,  at  nine  o'clock,  every  man 
would  answer  to  his  name.  Uncle  Philip  Perry- 
man  was  fifer,  and  Harvey  Cummings  was 
drummer. 


In  the  morning  pretty  early  the  men  would 
begin  to  come  in,  and  a  good  many  women  would 
come  to  see  the  men  muster,  and  some  of  them 
would  walk  three  or  four  miles. 

We  would  listen  for  the  delegation  from  the 
West.  The  fife  and  drum  and  the  Captain  was 
in  that  delegation;  and  when  we  would  hear  the 
music  and  see  that  red  plume  coming  around  the 
bend  of  the  road,  a  boy  would  think  his  height 
was  ubout  eight  feet  in  his  stockings  and  his 
avoirdupois  was  about  seven  hundred  pounds. 

James  Mitchell  run  a  "sti!4-house"  near  by 
and  when  the  men  would  go  into  ranks  with  two 
or  three  "snorts"  of  Mitchell's  "best"  they 
would  seem  to  forget  but  what  they  were  in  the 
midst  of  the  Revolutionary  war,  and  each  man 
had  patriotism  and  whiskey  enough  in  him  for 
a  half-dozen  men',  but  when  the  whiskey  would 
die  in  him  the  patriotism  would  die  too,  but  the 
man  would  live  by  a  small  majority. 


26 


|N  the  early  days,  when  a  field  was  ready 
to  plant  in  corn,  all  the  boys  and  girls 
of  the  neighborhood  would  gather  there 
and  some  would  drop  the  corn  and  some 
would  cover  it  with  hoes;  and  sometimes  a  young 
man  and  young  woman  would  meet  in  the  field 
and  stop  and  talk  and  sometimes  make  a  bargain 
to  get  married;  and  if  it  was  very  warm  both 
would  be  barefooted;  and  when  they  made  an 
engagement,  that  engagement  was  made  to  stay. 
The  divorce  court  got  no  work  there;  and  when 
they  got  married,  all  the  people  for  miles  around 
would  be  there,  and  all  would  contribute  some- 
thing to  make  up  a  big  dinner  of  the  best  that 
the  country  afforded.  The  men  would  get  to- 
gether and  cut  logs  and  build  them  a  house  and 
most  every  family  for  miles  around  would  give 
them  a  quilt  or  blanket,  or  pillow,  and  soon  they 
were  pretty  well  fixed.  Those  people  raised 
boys  and  girls  of  large,  strong  brain,  and  some 


27 

of  them  boys  are  in  Congress,  or  the  Senate,  and 
some  are  on  the  Judges  bench,  and  the  girls 
filling  equally  as  honorable  positions.  For  re- 
member, that  our  wisest  and  best  statesmen 
come  from  the  field.  Any  land  that  will  grow 
corn  will  grow  statesmen,  and  the  statesmen 
who  grow  up  between  the  rows  of  corn  will  do 
to  depend  upon  anywhere. 


28 


cwb  tlic 


JN  early  days  my  Father  got  Wm  .  Sullivan 
to  come  and  help  him  to  butcher  a  beef, 
and  it  was  getting  dark  when  they  got 
done,  and  Mr.  Sullivan  started  home 
with  some  of  the  beef,  and  the  wolves  gathered 
around  him  so  thick  that  he  had  to  climb  a  tree 
to  save  himself,  and  he  hollered  with  all  his 
might,  but  it  was  windy  and  no  one  heard  him 
until  nearly  morning.  My.  Father  heard  him 
and  started  to  go  to  him,  but  Billy  hollered  and 
told  him  not  to  come  alone;  then  he  went  and 
got  John  Hall  to  come  with  all  his  hounds,  and 
when  they  shot  off  their  guns  and  the  hounds 
made  a  great  noise,  the  wolves  left,  and  Billy 
came  down  almost  chilled;  and  he  said  there  was 
between  thirty  and  forty  of  the  wolves.  Such 
was  pioneer  life  in  Illinois. 


29 


|E  HAD  to  work  under  some  great 
disadvantages;  two  of  the  greatest 
was  the  want  of  money  to  do  business 
with,  and  the  want  of  tools  to  work 
with.  The  paper  money  was  so  uncertain,  some- 
times a  bill  which  was  good  to-day  was  worth 
nothing  to-morrow.  It  was  not  Government 
money;  some  of  it  was  State  money,  but  some- 
times the  State  could  not  redeem  its  money.  If 
you  sold  a  man  a  horse  you  would  get  from 
twenty-five  to  forty  dollars  for  him,  and  if  you 
got  it  in  paper  you  must  go  to  where  they  had  a 
"Detector";  a  little  paper  that  was  issued  every 
two  weeks,  showing  what  the  different  money 
was  worth  at  the  time  the  "Detector'  '  was  issued. 
You  would  often  get  bills  representing  at  least 
one  hundred  dollars  to  get  thirty  dollars.  This 
bill  is  worth  twenty-five  cents  to  the  dollar,  and 
this  bill  is  on  a  bank  which  is  a  little  better,  it 
is  worth  forty  cents,  and  so  on;  and  we  got  very 


30 

small  prices  at  best.  We  had  almost  no  market. 
Sometimes  produce  was  hauled  to  St.  Louis  in 
wagons  and  fat  hogs  were  driven  to  the  same 
market.  And  the  tools  we  had  to  farm  with 
were  mostly  home  made,  and  now  farmers  would 
not  think  of  using  such  tools  at  all.  We  had 
nothing  like  a  harrow  or  roller,  the  clods  must 
be  broke  up  with  hoes,  and  the  corn  must  be 
hoed  two  or  three  times;  and  the  wheat  and  oats 
must  be  cut  with  reap  hooks,  and  if  a  man  would 
reap  one  acre  per  day  he  was  doing  well.  But 
the  people  had  what  they  was  used  to,  and  as 
they  did  not  expect  anything  better  they  worked 
on  pretty  well  contented. 


T  WAS  probably  in  1831,  there  was  a 
little  snow,  and  my  Father  was  gone 
from  home,  and  when  nearly  dark,  the 
two  big  dogs  smelled  something  down 
about  the  back  of  the  field,  and  they  would  bark 
and  growl  and  whine,  and  my  Mother  tried  to 
get  them  to  go,  but  they  was  afraid  to  go.  When 
Father  came  home  my  Mother  told  him  how  the 
dogs  had  acted,  and  as  soon  as  it  was  light 
enough  to  see,  in  the  morning,  my  Father  went 
down  there  and  came  back,  and  said  there  had 
been  a  large  bear  went  between  the  fence  and 
the  bank  of  the  creek.  He  got  two  of  his  neigh- 
bors to  go  with  him,  and  they  followed  his  track 
about  a  mile  and  found  where  he  had  went  into 
a  patch  of  thick  hazels,  and  had  broke  down  a 
lot  of  the  bushes  with  his  teeth  to  lay  on  to  keep 
him  out  of  the  snow;  but  he  ran  out  before  they 
got  up  close,  and  all  the  dogs  after  him,  and 
every  little  while  he  would  stop  to  fight  the  dogs, 


32 

and  when  the  men  would  come  up,  he  would 
run  again,  but  finally,  he  was  so  large  and  fat 
he  tired  out,  and  the  men  got  up  pretty  close, 
but  they  were  afraid  to  shoot  for  fear  they  would 
hit  the  dogs;  but  after  awhile  one  of  them  got  a 
pretty  good  chance  and  shot  him  through  behind 
the  shoulders,  and  when  the  blood  began  to  run 
and  he  began  to  sink,  all  the  dogs  piled  on  him, 
and  the  men  ran  up  and  beat  them  off  and  cut 
his  throat.  They  did  not  weigh  him,  but  they 
thought  he  would  weigh  near  three  hundred 
pounds. 


33 


IE  BELIEVE  it  was  in  the  year  1841, 
the  wolves  were  killing  my  Father's 
pigs  more  than  usual,  and  he  went  to 
the  men  who  kept  hounds  and  got 
them  to  come  early  in  the  morning,  and  they 
brought  about  twenty-five  dogs  and  they  soon 
started  a  wolf,  and  it  circled  a  little,  then  started 
north,  and  about  fifteen  men  and  tw7enty-five 
dogs  after  it,  and  it  went  north  nearly  to  the 
knobs  timber,  then  turned  northwest  to  near 
where  Assumption  now  stands,  and  then  turned 
south  to  near  to  where  Rosemond  now  stands, 
and  they  caught  it  just  south  of  Rosemond,  and 
about  half  of  the  men  and  all  the  dogs  but  eight 
had  dropped  out  when  they  caught  it  at  sun- 
down; and  they  said  they  run  it  about  thirty-five 
miles,  then  they  had  to  go  about  twenty  miles  to 
home,  in  the  night;  but  two  men  went  south  to 
hunt  up  the  Sarver's  and  Fraley's  to  come  with 
fresh  hounds  and  try  for  the  other  one,  and  they 


34 


were  there  at  daylight,  and  my  Mother  had  got 
breakfast  for  them,  and  I  remember  hearing 
Uncle  John  Sarver  say:  "Boys,  I  can  get  on 
old  Nance  and  take  my  two  oldest  dogs  "Sam 
Houston"and  "Davy  Crockett"  and  I  can  catch 
any  wolf  on  the  earth,  but  I  want  from  sun-up 
till  sun-down  to  do  it,  for  it  takes  a  hard  run  for 
thirty  or  thirty-five  miles,  but  we'll  get  him." 
My  Father  had  found  where  their  den  was  in  a 
mound  on  the  prairie  about  a  mile  east  of  our 
house;  and  they  soon  jumped  the  other  wolf  and 
took  nearly  the  same  route  as  the  one  did  the 
day  before,  but  when  it  got  around  the  head  of 
Beck's  creek  timber  it  turned  south  and  they 
caught  it  just  at  night  in  a  lake  just  west  of 
where  Oconee  now  stands.  They  had  tied  all 
the  dogs  that  had  run  the  day  before  but  John 
Hall's  "old  Rule",  a  long-legged  spotted  dog, 
that  led  the  chase  all  day  the  day  before,  broke 
his  rope  and  went  in  the  lead  all  that  day.  Now 
the  young  wolves  was  a  little  larger  than  a  rabbit. 
The  next  morning  all  the  men  and  all  the  dogs 


35 


in  the  settlement,  and  a  number  of  women  was 
there,  and  during  the  day  they  caught  seven 
young  wolves;  the}'  didn't  run  very  far;  and 
John  Hall  and  John  Sarver  said  they  could  take 
"old  Rule"  and  "Sam  Houston"  and  they  could 
catch  the  Devil. 


£ 


00  w. 


IE  sometimes  hear  men  joke  about  the 
proverbial  "coon  skin"  of  early  days, 
but  it  was  no  joke  in  our  boyhood, 
we  had  to  have  the  Raccoon  in  our 
business.  If  the  coon  crop  had  failed  we  would 
have  had  a  coon  skin  panic,  which  would  have 
swept  all  over  the  country.  But  the  coon  had 
one  bad  habit,  he  liked  roasting-ears  a  little  too 
well;  but  his  diet  in  the  spring  and  summer  was 
frogs  and  crawfish  and  bugs,  and  in  the  fall  and 
winter  it  was*  acorns  and  hackberries  and  corn. 
And4f  a  dog  was  not  a  coon  dog  he  was  no  dog 
at  all;  and  an  old  experienced  coon  dog  could 
teH  better  when  it  was  a  good  night  for  coons  to 
travel  than  a  boy  could;  he  would  come  to  the 
door  and  whine  and  howl,  -then  the  boys  would 
gather  their  ax  and  away  into  the  woods,  and 
soon  "old  Pomp"  was  gone,  then  they  would  sit 
down  on  a  log  and  listen  and  after  awhile  away 
up  the  branch  "y-o-w",  "y-o-w";  and  when 


37 

the  boys  would  get  there,  whether  the  tree  was 
big  or  little  it  had  to  come  down,  or  one  of  the 
boys  would  climb  up  and  scare  his  coonship  out. 
The  coon  was  a  bad  fighter,  and  could  whip  a 
dog  very  quickly,  unless  the  dog  understood  how 
to  kill  them;  but  when  we  saw  a  dog  take  a 
'•running  shoot"  at  a  coon  and  strike  it  with  his 
breast  and  knock  it  down,  then  grab  it  through 
the  ribs,,  and  hold  it  to  the  ground  vejy  tightly, 
we  knew  that  dog  was  "onto  his  job",  for  he 
would  kill  it  pretty  quickly. 


38 

Stature. 


JHE  writer  of  this  little  book  was  born 
and  raised  in  a  log-cabin  on  Mitchell's 
creek,  in  Shelby  county,  Illinois, 
twelve  miles  south-west  of  Shelby- 
ville,  the  county-seat.  Date  of  birth,  April  26, 
1836.  At  that  time  there  was  a  poor  chance  for 
a  boy  to  get  an  education;  but  we  love  to  think 
of  those  days,  because  nature  in  all  her  beauties 
wras  so  near  like  the  hand  of  God  had  formed  it; 
the  skill  of  man  had  changed  it  so  little,  and  it 
was  our  school  and  our  delight  to  roam  over  the 
wide  unbroken  prairies,  where  the  lark  was 
singing  in  his  native  home.  Where  the  wild 
flowers,  of  all  colors,  were  more  beautiful  than 
Solomon  in  all  his  glory.  These  scenes  inspired 
a  feeling  in  a  boy's  heart  of  awe  and  reverence 
for  the  God  of  nature  more  deep  and  sublime 
and  true,  than  all  the  preaching  could  inspire. 
When  a  boy^  would  get  on  a  high  piece  of  ground 
and  look  around  he  saw  a  more  beautiful  sight 


39 

than  he  will  ever  see  again  on  this  earth,  and 
his  eyes  would  fill  with  tears  and  from  the  depths 
of  his  boyish  heart  he  would  give  glory  to  God; 
and  I  don't  know  but  that  boy  was  better  there 
and  then  than  he  ever  will  be  again,  until  God 
shall  call  him  home. 


40 

'»  of 


N  early  days,  in  Illinois,  there  was  very 
little  distinction  made  between  man's 
work  and  woman's  work;  for  the  men 
could  cook  and  wash  and  spin,  and 
could  do  almost  any  kind  of  woman's  work,  and 
the  women  could  do  almost  any  kind  of  man's 
work.  The  girls  could  yoke  up  the  cattle  and 
go  and  cut  and  haul  a  load  of  wood,  and  some- 
times when  the  girls  were  not  in  the  field  they 
would  go  and  shoot  a  mess  of  squirrels  and  make 
a  big  pot-pie  for  their  brother's  dinner.  Where 
there  were  large  families,  the  parents  did  but 
little,  the  boys  and  girls  done  nearly  all;  and 
they  looked  forward  to  the  time  when  the  corn 
was  to  plant,  or  the  flax  to  pull  with  pleasure, 
for  then  all  the  boys  and  girls  would  be  together 
and  have  a  good  time;  and  in  pulling  flax  they 
wrould  take  a  swrath  four  feet  wide  and  see  who 
could  pull  through  first,  and  generally  the  girls 
would  beat  the  boys,  for  it  was  not  heavy  work, 
but  all  depended  on  being  quick. 


'HEY  would  go  to  the  woods  and  cut 
5W\  m  a  walnut  tree,  which  would  square 
^*  W&  about  a  foot,  and  cut  it  off  as  long  as 
it  would  make  good  lumber,  then 
drag  it  to  a  pretty  steep  hill  with  the  oxen,  then 
score  and  hew  it  square,  then  line  it  on  both 
sides;  the  lines  an  inch  apart;  then  cut  two  long 
stout  poles,  and  lay  one  end  up  the  hill  and  prop 
the  other  end  against  trees  down  on  the  hillside, 
then  run  their  square  log  out  on  them  skids,  then  ' 
dig  the  dirt  down  so  the  under  man  would  have 
level  ground  to  walk  on;  then  one  man  get  above 
and  one  below  with  a  whip-saw,  which  only  cut 
as  it  went  down;  and  they  made  real  good  lum- 
ber; and  two  good  hands  was  supposed  to  cut 
two  hundred  feet  per  day. 


42 


NOTHING  in  the  memory  of  the  early 
settler  remains  more  vivid  than  the 
chase.  Fresh  in  our  memory  is.  our 
boyhood  days,  when  "hunting  day" 
would  come,  generally  on  Saturday  unless  that 
was  "muster  day".  You  may  think  that  we 
hunted  most  of  the  time,  but  that  is  a  mistake. 
We  could  not  take  the  time,  but  one  day  in  the 
week  was  regular  "hunting  day".  All  was  stir 
and  bustle  very  early  in  the  morning,  the  Father 
and  the  two  big  boys  would  see  that  their  guns 
were  well  loaded  and  in  good  fix  and  bullets  in 
each  pouch,  and  as  soon  as  it  was  light  enough 
the  long  ox-horn  was  taken  down  and  taken  out- 
side the  door,  and  then  the  excitement  grew 
more  intense,  for  as  soon  as  the  long  blast 
"t-o-o-o-o-t"  was  given  every  hound  would  stand 
on  his  hind  feet  and  see  which  could  holler  the 
loudest,  and  big,  little,  old  and  young  would 
come  to  the  door  to  take  part  in  the  jubilee,  even 


43 

the' baby  would  slap  his  little  hands  and  holler, 
for  he  knew  there  was  something  up.  Then 
away  to  the  woods  and  little  glades  they  would 
go.  Then  we  would  stand  out  and  listen  with 
almost  breathless  silence,  but  we  didn't  have  to 
listen  very  long,  for  directly,  hark!  the  long- 
drawn-out  "b-o-o"  was  heard.  "Oh,  they  have 
struck  a  cold  trail,  that  is  'old  Pomp'  '  "Maybe 
a  coon."  But  directly  he  would  begin  to  warm 
up  on  his  subject,  and  "Muse"  and  "Joler" 
would  fall  in,  and  directly,  all  at  once,  all  would 
turn  loose,  pups  and  all.  "Oh!  its  a  deer,  they 
have  jumped  it  up."  Then  they  would  fairly 
make  the  woods  ring  for  awhile;  and  when  we 
would  hear  the  crack  of  the  faithful  rifle  \ve 
knew  that  meant  fresh  venison,  for  we  knew  that 
to  miss  a  shot  was  not  their  stvle. 


44 

ef*Cu 


JETER  HUFFMAN  was  an  orphan 

boy,  and  he  had  an  odd,  careless  way 
that  made  people  laugh.  Almost 
every  day  Peter  would  do  something 
so  odd,  and  so  droll,  and  so  unexpected,  that  he 
kept  up  fun  for  the  whole  neighborhood;  and  he 
didn't  seem  to  know  or  care  what  the  people 
said.  But  Peter  was  so  honest  and  so  indus- 
trious, and  so  good-hearted,  and  so  unpretending 
that  they  all  liked  him.  When  Peter  was  nearly 
grown,  he  worked  for  John  Crocker  all  one  sum- 
mer for  a  nice  yoke  of  work  cattle,  and  by  the 
time  he  had  the  cattle  paid  for  winter  was'com- 
ing  on,  he  had  fallen  in  love  with  a  real  good 
girl  by  the  name  of  Mima  Brewer;  and  her  folks 
were  wealthy,  but  Peter  did  not  know  that  that 
made  any  difference,  and  so  he  went  to  see  Mima 
and  found  that  he  was  very  welcome.  Now  he 
goes  to  work  to  make  a  sled  to  take  Mima  sleigh- 
riding,  but  before  he  got  his  sled  done  Sunday 


45 

came,  and  a  good  snow,  and  Mima  wanted  to  go 
to  her  Uncle's,  about  four  miles.  Now  Peter 
had  no  horse  or  sleigh;  no\v  what  was  to  be  done? 
Mima  wanted  to  go  and  she  must  not  be  disap- 
pointed; and  Peter  borrowed  a  one-horse  sleigh 
and  went  and  yoked  up  his  cattle,  and  got  an 
old  pair  of  harness  and  put  them  on  "Tom"  the 
near  ox,  and  put  him  in  the  shafts,  and  "Jerry" 
had  nothing  to  do  but  wralk  along  at  the  side, 
and  Peter  and  Mima  got  in  the  sleigh  and  they 
went  there  and  back  in  good  order.  Peter  soon 
got  his  sled  done  and  he  went  and  got  license 
and  he  and  Mima  got  in  the  sled  and  went  and 
got  married  and  went  to  work  and  soon  they 
were  raising  more  horses,  more  cattle,  sheep  and 
hogs  than  anybody  around  there,  and  soon  they 
had  a  good  farm,  good  house  and  barn,  and 
next,  they  was  riding  in  the  finest  carriage  in 
that  country,  and  the  people  that  laughed  at 
them  when  they  took  their  first  sleigh-ride  had 
to  walk. 


46 


HEN  the  pioneers  would  go  out  deer 
driving,  as  we  called  it,  in  the  morn- 
ing and  the  hounds  would  start  a 
deer,  the}7  had  almost  certain  routes 
to  run,  and  \veknew  pretty  nearly  where  to  stand 
to  get  a  shot,  but  if  it  got  through,  it  was  very 
apt  to  go  several  miles  and  circle  in  the  woods 
for  several  hours,  but  it  would  come  back  after 
awhile  and  cross  the  road  within  ten  feet  of 
where  it  crossed  before,  and  now  the  thing  to  do 
was  to  all  go  home  and  go  to  work,  only,  leave 
the  boy  that  was  the  surest  shot  and  had  the  best 
gun  and  the  hounds  would  follow  it,  and  that 
boy  would  have  almost  a  dead  sure  thing  if  he 
would  stay  there,  when  it  would  get  nearly  to 
the  road  it  would  stop  to  see  if  the  coast  was 
clear,  then  the  boy  would  shoot  it  through  the 
heart,  then  he  would  blow  the  signal  for  help  on 
the  horn,  then  a  boy  was  sent  with  a.  gentle  horse 
to  help  him  fetch  it  home. 


47 


T  WOULD  seem  very  strange  to  the 
people  now  to  see  the  "pioneer  boy" 
going  to  the  "horse  mill"  long  before 
daylight  for  fear  some  one  would  get  in 
ahead  of  him.  Then  when  he  gets  home  he  has 
to  go  around  the  field  and  scare  the  squirrels  out; 
then  go  away  down  in  the  valley  and  shake  down 
the  wild  plums  for  the  hogs  to  eat;  then  carry 
\vater  and  put  it  in  the  ash-hopper  to  make  the 
soap;  then  pick  wool  while  he  rests;  then  go  and 
see  if  the  deer-skins  are  ready  to  be  taken  out  of 
the  trough  and  rubbed  dry;  then  help  to  put  the 
"chain"  through  the  "harness"  to  make  the 
cloth;  then  go  and  look  where  is  the  best  place 
to  cut  prairie  hay;  then  carry  up  some  pumpkins 
to  dry.  But  the  "pioneer  boy"  was  a  happy, 
rollicking  lad;  he  had  just  what  he  expected,  and 
he  knew  he  was  a  good  shot  with  the  rifle,  and 
was  handy  with  the  ox-  whip,  and  had  a  good 
"coon  dog",  and  that  was  enough  for  him. 


48 


JIXTY-THREE  years  ago  there  was  a 
school  going  on  four  miles  East  of  us, 
and  we  went  all  winter.  There  were 
five  boys  of  us,  and  I  was  the  smallest; 
the  two  largest  boys  would  get  on  one  horse  and 
the  three  smaller  boys  on  the  ''other  horse", 
that  placed  me  "third  boy"  on  the  "other  horse" 
right  on  his  hips;  and  they  would  go  in  a  swift 
gallop  all  the  way,  and  when  we  would  get  there 
I  was  almost  done  for.  And  I  only  learned  one 
thing  that  winter.  I  learned  that  to  be  "third 
boy"  on  the  "other  horse"  and  on  a  keen  jump 
for  a  four-mile  dash  is  a  hard  seat  for  a  small 
boy.  I  lived  over  it,  but  I  have  not  got  rested 
yet. 


49 

Stanbo. 


jHEN  the  writer  was  a  boy,  where 
Pana  now  stands  was  an  unbroken 
wilderness,  and  the  land  belonged  to 
the  government,  and  wras  subject  to 
entry  at  one  dollar  and  twenty-five  cents  per 
acre;  but  that  had  to  be  paid  in  gold  or  silver,  as 
the  paper  money  of  the  country  was  so  uncertain. 
But  the  people  doubted  whether  the  land  would 
ever  be  worth  the  money.  Tom.  Bell  lived  at 
Bell's  Grove,  West,  and  the  Abbot's  and  a  fe\v 
others  lived  on  the  head  of  Beck's  Creek,  Kast; 
but  the  prairie  where  Pana  stands  there  was 
nothing  to  show  that  man  had  ever  been  there, 
not  a  tree  or  shrub  was  there;  but  the  deer  and 
wolves  raised  their  young  there,  and  the  rattle- 
snake had  his  own  way;  only  when  the  prairie 
burned  over  in  warm  \veather,  then  thousands 
of  them  burned  to  death.  When  the  men  were 
first  breaking  up  the  prairie  sod  they  would  tell 
of  killing  twenty  to  thirty  rattlesnakes  in  one  day. 


S  via  Pie. 

SIXTY  years  ago  we  was  plowing  with 
a  yoke  of  steers  in  a  field  that  lay  idle 
the  year  before,  and  we  was  barefoot, 
and  there  was  a  great  many  dead 
weeds  in  the  field.  We  was  plowing  along,  in- 
terrupting nobody,  and  we  felt  something  tight 
around  the  foot,  and  we  thought  it  was  a  forked 
or  crooked  weed,  and  we  kicked,  and  instead  of 
its  coining  off  it  rather  seemed  to  get  tighter,  and 
we  looked  down  and  saw  it  was  about  a  second- 
sized  snake  wrapped  around  our  foot;  and  you 
ought  to  have  seen  him  go,  when  we  kicked  the 
next  time.  We  kicked  with  the  spirit  and  with 
the  understanding,  when  we  saw  what  it  was. 
It  was  not  doing  much  harm,  but  we  did  not 
want  it  there. 


WAS  probably  in  1837,  my  Mother 
went  to  see  a  sick  woman,  and  stayed 
there  until  dark,  but  the  moon  rose  soon 
after  dark,  and  she  started  home,  she 
had  a  pretty  good  road  through  the  thick  woods 
for  about  a  mile,  and  when  nearly  half  way  home 
three  animals  crossed  the  road  just  a  little  ahead 
of  her,  and  she  thought  they  were  panthers,  and 
when  they  got  across  the  road  they  stopped,  and 
she  thought  the  bravest  way  was  the  safest,  and 
she  gathered  up  a  big  dead  limb  and  made  at 
them  and  hollered;  they  ran  up  a  big  oak  tree 

near  the  road,  and  she  stood  there  and  hollered 
until  John  Hall  heard  and  answered,  and  she 
told  him  for  him  and  the  boys  to  fetch  their  guns 
and  dogs  and  come  quick,  she  had  three  panthers 
treed,  and  he  told  her  to  stay  there  and  keep  up 
all  the  noise  she  could,  and  they  run  and  shot 
them,  and  they  proved  to  be  wildcats;  John  said 
one  of  them  was  the  largest  wildcat  he  ever  saw. 
That  stick  was  kept  about  the  house  for  years 
and  was  known  as  "Mamma's  Wildcat  Club. " 


LIBRARY 


52 


JN  OUR  boyhood  we  had  cold  winters, 
but  they  were  not  quite  so  long  as  now, 
we  had  very  deep  snows  and  sometimes 
there  would  come  a  sleet  on  top  of  the 
snow;  and  then  if  we  could  find  a  deer  on  the 
prairie,  and  sometimes  they  would  stay  in  the 
valleys;  and  if  we  would  get  the  dogs  after  them 
when  they  would  break  through  the  ice  and  the 
dogs  could  run  on  top,  they  would  soon  catch  it. 

At  one  time  the  Baptist  people  held  their 
association  near  my  Father's,  and  Jack  Neal, 
Cornelius  May  and  Andrew  Hanson  started  on 
horseback  from  their  homes  North  of  Tower  Hill, 
and  in  riding  through  the  prairie  where  Tower 
Hill  now  stands  they  scared  up  a  yearling  deer, 
and  run  it  on  their  horses  and  caught  it  and 
brought  it  to  my  father's  and  dressed  it,  and  it 
was  fat  and  we  had  fresh  venison  through  the 
meeting. 


53 


SHEY  would  cut  down  a  pretty  large 
oak  tree  and  saw  off  a  block  about 
three  feet  long,  square  at  both  ends, 
set  it  upon  end,  build  a  hot  little  fire 
in  the  middle  of  the  upper  end  and  watch  it  to 
keep  it  from  burning  too  far  out,  and  by  burning 
two  or  three  days  they  would  get  a  hole  burned 
out  in  the  shape  of  a  basin,  •  then  hang  a  heavy 
maul  to  a  spring-pole,  so  that  the  spring-pole 
would  partly  raise  the  maul;  then  shell  some 
corn  and  put  it  in,  and  put  in  a  little  water  to 
toughen  the  husk;  then  stand  there  and  jerk  the 
maul  down  on  the  corn  and  beat  it  into  meal. 
And  it  took  a  good  deal  of  jerking  to  make  a 
little  meal. 


54 


State. 


LLINOIS  "being  our  native  State;  the 
State  of  our  cradle,  and  is  to  be  of  our 
grave.  The  State  where  our  pathway 
has  been  strewn  with  beauties;  where 
the  God  of  Nature  has  been  so  plainly  seen  in 
every  swelling  bud  and  in  every  snowflake; 
where  the  very  air  has  been  laden  with  mercies. 
No  one  can  be  surprised  if  our  feelings  prompt 
us  to  speak  pretty  highly  of  our  native  home, 
Illinois,  the  great  fertile  prairie  valley  between 
the  Mississippi  and  Ohio  rivers,  like  a  choice 
gem  placed  between  the  more  hilly  states  on  the 
East  and  the  West.  Il^nois,  the  second  and 
soon  to  be  the  first  agricultural  state  in  the 
Union;  destined  by  her  Creator  to  do  a  worthy 
share  in  feeding  the  world.  Her  merits  and  her 
charms  have  drawn  on  the  intelligence  and  in- 
dustry of  every  nation  upon  the  globe. 


55 


HE  Author  would  like  to  picture  to 
the  reader  the  mold-board  plow  and 
thereap-hook,  the  flint-lock  gun  and 
shuck  horse  collar,  the  hominy  mor- 
tar, the  goose-quill  pen,  the  fire-place  and  skillet, 
the  deer-skin  coat  and  pants,  the  whip-saw  and 
the  frow,  the  pot-rack,  and  the  ox-yoke.  We 
would  like  to  show  you  the  pioneer's  tramping 
out  wheat  on  the  ground,  with  their  six  or  eight 
horses  going  round  and  round;  then  we  would 
like  to  show  you  the  four  or  five  big  yoke  of 
cattle  breaking  prairie,  and  the  plow  cutting 
about  two  feet  and  turning  over  every  sod  dis- 
tinct to  itself;  then  to  see  the  three  boys  taking 
every  alternate  sod,  the  foremost  boy  striking 
over-handed  cutting  holes  in  the  sod  with  an  ax, 
the  second  boy  dropping  the  seed  corn  in  that 
hole,  the  third  boy  striking  over-handed  and 
with  the  back  of  the  ax  closing  up  that  hole, 
keeping  motion  the  while  by  the  foremost  boy 


56 

repeating  the  word  "now",  "now",  "now", and 
'them  three  boys  could  plant  five  acres  of  sod 
corn  in  a  day.  Now  we  go  and  see  the  man 
riveing  out  clapboards  to  cover  his  cabin;  and 
we  would  love  to  show  you  how  the  cabin  is 
built  and  covered  and  not  a  nail  used  only  in  the 
door.  Now  we  go  and  see  the  ten  or  twelve  boys 
and  girls  pulling  flax,  but  you  must  watch  for 
snakes;  see  that  little  spider  of  a  girl,  she  is  ahead, 
because  she  is  quick.  See  that  field  of  corn,  the 
crows  and  blackbirds  have  taken  it  nearly  all. 
We  would  like  to  show  you  the  smoke-rags 
hanging  to  the  horses'  harness,  to  drive  away 
the  greenhead  flies. 


57 


UR  Father  and  Mother  was  very 
careful  to  try  and  teach  us  to  rever- 
ence God,  and  to  love  our  country 
and  our  home,  and  to  love  our  neigh- 
bors; and  they  tried  to  teach  us  that  the  people 
are  not  bad,  but  good;  and  until  this  day,  we  do 
not  like  to  hear  men  talk  that  the  people  are  so 
bad,  for  it  is  not  true.  The  masses  of  the  people 
aim  to  do  right;  they  love  righteousness,  but 
they  often  make  mistakes,  and  at  an  unguarded 
moment  do  things  which  they  are  sorry  for;  but 
they  aim  to  be  good.  And  when  we  speak  of 
the  pioneers  being  so  good  we  would  not  dare 
to  say  that  they  were  any  better  than  the  people 
are  now,  but  we  do  not  think  there  was  quite  so 
much  temptation  to  do  bad  then  as  now. 


58 


JHE  writer  has  lived  in  Illinois  more 
than  three  score  and  ten  years,  and 
in  that  time  we  have  se^n  great 
changes.  We  have  seen  the  change 
from  the  ox-team  to  the  steam  engine;  we  have 
seen  the  change  from  the  wooden  mold-board 
plow  to  the  steam  plow;  we  have  seen  the  change 
from  the  reap-hook  to  the  self-binder,  and  from 
the  lizzard  to  the  automobile;  from  the  bull-ton- 
gue corn  plow  to  the  two-horse  riding  cultivator. 
We  have  witnessed  the  change  from  the  business 
being  carried  on  through  the  medium  of  trade 
and  traffic  to  the  time  when  most  men  have 
money  in  the  bank.  During  the  first  half  of  our 
seventy  years,  Illinois  was  yet  in  its  infancy  and 
grew  very  slowly,  but  during  the  last  half  she 
has  developed  very  rapidly,  and  has  made  rapid 
stride  in  the  way  of  improvement,  and  other 
great  changes  are  to  come  yet,  and  they  will 
come  pretty  rapidly.  The  spirit  of  enterprise  is 


59 

on  the  wing  and  moving  swiftly,  and  the  outlook 
is  flattering.  The  people  are  learning;  they  are 
laying  down  their  party  prejudice,  and  looking 
at  the  situation  more  wisely.  We  have  had  an 
era  of  extreme  corruption,  but  that  has  nearly 
had  its  day,  for  the  voters  see  that  their  prejudice 
is  the  only  thing  which  made  that  corruption 
possible.  We  think  we  can  see  reasons  to  be- 
lieve that  the  corruption  and  lawlessness  will 
have  to  go;  and  the  drunkenness  will  have  to  go. 
The  few  party  leaders  have  kept  the  voters 
blinded  as  long  as  they  can,  and  when  the  peo- 
ple get  their  eyes  wide  open  they  are  mighty 
and  the  law-breakers  and  corruptionists  will 
have  to  take  a  back  seat. 


6o 

ie  Scfvoof  \\\  tlW 


|N"  early  days  there  was  an  empty  cabin 
in  our  neighborhood  at  one  time,  and  a 
man  came  along  and  wanted  to  teach 
school,  if  he  could  get  fifteen  scholars 
he  would  teach  three  months  for  one  dollar  and 
fifty  cents  per  scholar,  and  would  take  his  pay 
in  corn,  wheat,  pork,  beans,  honey,  beeswax,  or 
anything,  and  he  boarded  around  among  the 
families  who  sent  pupils.  All  right;  and  the 
men  went  into  the  woods  and  cut  some  "linn" 
(linden)  trees  and  split  them  open  and  hewed 
some  of  the  worst  splinters  off  the  flat  side  and 
bored  holes  and  put  legs  in  the  round  side  and 
made  us  some  good  benches;  we  took  the  oxen 
and  hauled  up  some  wood  and  Mr.  Anderson 
set  in  to  teach.  He  did  not  know  much  more 
than  a  goat,  but  that  made  no  difference.  Brady 
Phelps'  children  would  fetch  their  little,  speckled, 
bench-legged  "fiste",  and  he  would  stay  in  the 
house,  under  their  bench,  and  when  we  would 


6i 


stick  our  feet  back  under  the  bench  and  touch 
him  he  would  bite  us  on  the  heel.  Frank  Ferry- 
man was  just  about  my  age  and  just  about  as 
mean;  at  the  noon  hour  he  and  I  would  get  a 
wild  grape-vine,  and  one  take  hold  of  either  end 
and  get  outside  the  door,  then  send  a  boy  in  to 
run  him  out,  and  when  he  jumped  to  go  over 
the  grape-vine  we  would  fetch  a  yank  and  throw 
that  dog  twenty  feet  high;'  when  we  had  sent 
him  up  a  few  times  he  quit  the  school  of  his  own 
free  will  and  accord. 


62 

in 


N  our  early  boy  hood  v  Shelby  ville,  our 
county  seat,  was  a  small  place;  General 
W.  F.  Thornton  kept  store  just  North 
of  where  the  court  house  now  stands; 
Roundy  &  Dexter  kept  store  just  West  of  the 
court  house;  Dan.  Earpkept  saloon  on  the  South; 
Ben.  Talman  kept  tavern  on  the  East;  Rand 
Higgins  run  the  river  mill;  Burrel  Roberts  was 
county  clerk;  Ed.  Shallenbarger  was  surveyor; 
E.  A.  Douthit  was  sheriff  and  collector.  Joseph 
Oliver  was  there,  also  the  Trembles,  Tacketts, 
Cutler's,  and  C.  Woodard.  JohnD.  Bruster  run 
the  tan-yard  on  the  hill.  Anthony  Thornton 
was  the  leading  lawyer;  Sam'l  W.  Moulton  came 
there  when  we  were  a  boy.  We  remember  hear- 
ing Abraham  Lincoln  plead  a  divorce  case  in 
the  old  court  house  sixty  years  ago.  At  that 
time  the  lawyers  traveled  from  place  to  place  on 
horseback,  and  carried  their  books  in  their 
saddle-bags. 


N  our  boyhood  the  bears  and  panthers 
were  mostly  killed  out,  but  there  was 
a  great  many  wolves  and  wildcats,  but 
we  did  not  fear  the  wild  animals  half 
so  much  as  we  did  the  rattlesnake  and  spreading 
viper,  both  of  which  was  very  plentiful,  especial- 
ly the  rattlesnake;  while  the  other  snakes  would 
run  away,  they  would  coil  up  and  make  ready 
to  strike.  The  timber  rattlesnake  grew  to  be 
very  large,  I  have  seen  them  at  least  four  feet 
long  and  very  thick  to  their  length,  but  the 
spots  on  them  were  a  bright  copper  color  and 
-they  were  easily  seen;  the  prairie  rattlesnake 
was  much  smaller,  of  a  dirt  color,  and  hard  to 
see. 


64 

feu  Steer. 


JHEN  the  writer  was  a  boy,  maybe 
fourteen  or  fifteen  years  old,  my 
Father  owned  a  nice  fat  little  steer 
that  left  home  and  took  up  at  Bnos 
Jones  and  my  Father  wanted  him  for  beef  and 
he  told  me  to  go  and  put  a  rope  halter  on  him 
and  fetch  him  home.  I  went  and  got  him  in 
the  stable,  made  a  halter  and  put  it  on  him  and 
when  about  half-way  home  he  got  unruly,  the 
halter  slipped  off,  and  he  broke  to  go  back,  but 
I  was  a  good  runner,  was  barefooted,  and  I 
headed  him;  then  he  took  the  road  for  William 
Sullivan's,  and  there  was  a  race,  he  went  straight 
for  the  house.  Mr.  Sullivan  had  four  daughters 
and  I  was  very  bashful,  and  he  also  had  two  big 
dogs  of  whom  I  was  afraid,  but  I  could  not  afford 
to  lose  my  steer;  over  the  fence  he  went  and  I  at 
his  heels,  one  big  dog  came  running  around  one 
corner  of  the  house  from  one  way  and  the  other 
dog  from  the  other  way,  and  made  at  the  steer, 


65 

they  had  him  between  them;  both  doors  of  the 
house  were  open,  the  women  were  engaged  in 
quilting  and  were  not  apprised  of  our  arrival, 
and  the  first  they  knew  we  went  in  at  the  door, 
turned  the  table  over  on  the  cat,  while  as  he 
went  in  at  the  door  I  caught  him  by  the  tail  and 
as  he  went  out  at  the  other  door,  I  fetched  a 
yank  to  the  North,  which  he  was  not  expecting, 
thus  throwing  him  flat  against  the  wall,  then  he 
bellowed  as  loud  as  he  could;  then  the  women 
wanted  to  kill  me  and  the  steer  too  for  scareing 
them  so  bad;  I  was  hot  and  scared  too,  but  I  tied 
my  steer  to  a  tree,  took  off  my  hat,  backed  up 
in  the  shade  of  a  tree,  made  a  long  speech  upon 
the  short-comings  of  steers  and  dogs,  and  that 
boys  were  no  better;  they  all  listened  and  when 
they  got  to  laughing,  we  grew  eloquent  and  used 
big  words  and  lots  of  them,  while  they  got  to 
clapping  their  hands  and  laughing  big  and  loud 
I  left  them  in  fine  humor. 


66 


JAYBE  the  reader  would  like  to  know 
how  the  pioneers  made  the  chimneys 
to  their  cabins.  They  would  build 
up  with  split  logs  to  the  arch,  and 
rive  out  sticks  about  one  and  one-half  inches 
thick  and  two  inches  wide;  they  would  make 
mortar  of  clay  and  mix  in  some  grass  to  hold  it 
together;  they  would  make  a  scaffold  and  throw 
the  mortar  on  that  scaffold,  and  one  boy  or  man 
Would  stand  there  and  roll  that  stiff  mud  into 
what  was  called  "cats";  those  "cats"  were  about 
three  inches  thick  and  eight  inches  long.  The 
builder  stayed  up  in  the  inside  of  the  chimney, 
they  would  pitch  the  "cats"  and  the  sticks  up 
to  him,  he  would  put  on  a  round  of  the  "cats", 
then  a  round  of  the  sticks,  then  pound  the  sticks 
down  with  a  hand  maul  so  that  the  mud  was 
about  one  and  one-half  inches  thick  on  both  sides 
of  the  sticks;  and  that  was  a  safe  chimney  for 
twenty  years. 


67 


|HE  Author  of  this  little  book  feels 
proud  of  being  a  native-born  citizen 
of  one  of  the  central  counties  of  the 
best  State  in  the  best  Government 
under  the  sun.  Illinois  is  where  things  grow; 
the  corn,  the  wheat,  the  hay,  the  oats,  the  fruit, 
the  vegetables,  the  horses,  the  cattle,  the  hogs; 
the  eggs  don't  grow  on  bushes  in  Illinois,  but 
they  come  as  near  to  it  as  they  do  in  any  other 
State.  And  not  only  these  things,  which  have 
been  mentioned,  grow  in  Illinois,  but  brains 
grow  in  Illinois  too;  and  if  they  are  about  to  be 
bothered  to  find  a  man  who  is  smart  enough  for 
President,  tell  them  not  to  be  uneasy,  that 
Illinois  can  furnish  five  hundred,  if  that  many 
were  needed.  Yes,  Illinois  is  wrhere  things 
grow. 


68 


JHEN  you  would  ride  up  to  a  pioneer's 
cabin  the  first  thing  was  the  hounds' 
"boo,"  "boo,"  then  all  would  come 
to  the  door.      "Come  in,"  "come  in." 
You  go  in,  you  see  from  one  to  three  rifle   guns 

in  the  rack,  you  also  see  deer-skins  and  turkey- 
wings  all  about  the  house.  "Have  you  had  your 
dinner?"  "No."  "Gals,  get  him  some  dinner.  " 
You  find  plenty  of  milk  and  butter,  bread,  ven- 
ison, potatoes,  and  almost  everything  that  grows 
on  the  farm  or  in  the  woods.  You  speak  of 
going.  "Oh,  stay  all  night."  You  conclude 
to  stay;  then  you  must  tell  your  name  and  where 
you  live,  and  how  long  you  have  lived  there, 
how  many  children  you  have,  who  you  married, 
and  where  you  come  from,  also  how  many  deer 
you  have  killed  this  winter.  You  are  expected 
to  tell  it  all,  and  the  children  will  size  you  up 
very  carefully;  and  then  by  the  time  the  man 
tells  you  all  he  knows,  and  the  woman  tells  you 
all  she  knows,  and  all  that  her  mother  knew, 
and  all  that  her  grandmother  knew,  and  all  the 
children  tell  you  all  they  know,  you  do  not  get 
much  sleep. 


69 


|HE  writer  learned  at  an  early  age  to 
have  a  great  respect  for  the  church, 
not  for  any  one  particular  denomina- 
tion, but  for  all  who  seek  to  serve 
their  Creator  with  all  their  heart,  according  to 
their  best  understanding  of  His  will.  We  was 
raised  under  the  teaching  and  influence  of  the 
Methodist.  Baptist,  Presbyterian  and  the  Chris- 
tian churches.  John  Hall  and  others  was  preach- 
ing the  Methodist  doctrine,  Willis  Whitfield  the 
Baptist  doctrine,  McCreary  Bone  the  Presbyterian 
and  Bushrod  Henry  (the  father  of  our  present 
J.  O.  Henry)  preached  the  Christian  doctrine — 
all  of  them  good,  zealous  Christian  men.  We 
loved  them  all.  At  that  day  a  boy  would  not 
have  been  allowed  to  speak  with  disrespect  of  a 
preacher  at  all,  it  would  have  been  considered 
almost  like  blasphemy  to  thus  speak  of  a  preach- 
er with  disrespect. 


7o 


|N  our  boyhood,  we  had  little  use  for 
meadows,  we  could  go  out  in  the  prairie 
and  on  the  low  land  we  could  cut  from 
three  to  four  tons  of  good  hay  per  acre. 
A  big  boy  could  cut  five  tons  per  day,  which 
would  now  be  worth  at  least  fifty  dollars.  When 
we  was  a  boy,  we  went  out  to  mow  some  hay, 
and  we  found  our  good  neighbor  John  Hall  out 
there  mowing,  and  he  showed  us  whereto  mow, 
where  the  grass  was  very  good,  and  he  said  there 
was  all  the  grass  in  that  place  we  would  both 
cut.  When  it  was  near  noon  and  pretty  hot, 
we  were  wanting  water  very  much  John  called 
us  to  come  to  him,  we  went,  and  he  brought  out 
a  very  large,  long  watermelon  from  under  some 
green  hay  beneath  his  wagon,  and  we  got  in  the 
shade  of  his  wagon.  I  do  not  think  I  have  ever 
enjoyed  a  melon  with  more  relish  than  I  did 
that  one. 


cDee£  on  tfie  See. 


[HE  Deer  is  the  most  beautiful  of  all 
animals,  very  timid  and  harmless,  has 
no  disposition  to  fight  anything,  unless 
it  is  wounded  or  hemmed  in,  it  aims 
to  save  itself  by  flight;  but  hunters  say  it  kills 
every  snake  that  it  finds,  by  jumping  on  the 
reptile  with  all  its  feet  placed  close  together,  thus 
cutting  it  to  pieces  with  its  sharp  hoofs. 

It  was,  maybe,  in  the  winter  of  1844,  it  had 
been  very  cold  for  a  long  time,  my  elder  brother 
would  *go  to  the  spring  for  water  every  evening 
near  sunset,  and  there  was  a  large  buck  drinking 
in  the  spring,  as  the  water  was  frozen  up  other 
places;  my  Father  said  "wait  and  I  will  see  if  I 
can  kill  him,"  and  he  loaded  up  his  big  rifle 
and  went  down  to  the  big  locust  tree  South  of 
the  house,  in  plain  view  of  the  spring,  and  we 
saw  him  draw  up  against  the  tree  and  take  aim, 
and  "bang"  went  the  rifle,  and  he  ran  to  the 
spring,  directly  we  heard  him  hollering,  and  the 


72 

two  big  boys  ran  with  all  their  might;  the  bullet 
had  struck  him  on  the  horn,  just  where  it  joined 
his  head,  and  stunned  him,  and  he  lay  there 
until  my  Father  caught  him  by  the  hind  leg, 
when  he  sprang  to  his  feet;  there  was  a  solid 
sheet  of  smooth  ice,  about  fifteen  feet  across, and 
the  deer  could  not  hold  very  good  on  the  ice; 
my  Father  said  he  had  him  down  a  dozen  times, 
but  could  not  keep  him  down;  he  got  his  front 
feet  to  the  dry  land  once  or  twice,  and  my  Father 
would  jerk  him  back,  but  when  my  brothers  got 
there  they  got  hold  of  his  horns  and  threw  him 
down  and  they  all  piled  on  him  and  held  him 
down  until  they  cut  his  throat.  My  Father  was 
a  large,  stout  man,'  and  he  said  that  was  the 
hardest  scuffle  he  ever  had.  Such  was  pioneer 
life  in  Illinois. 


73 


N  early  days,  Ben  Overton  kept  a  little 
grocery  store  in  the  woods,  and  when 
James  Mitchell  quit  making  whiskey, 
Ben  went  to  St.  Louis  and  bought  a 
barrel  of  whiskey  and  put  out  the  word  that  he 
would  not  sell  it  in  any  other  way  but  by  the 
drink,  a  picayune  a  drink.  The  men  did  not 
like  him  very  well,  they  said  he  was  mean. 
When  Ben  got  home,  on  the  Saturday  after,  the 
men  gathered  there  from  ten  miles  around,  and 
now  Ben  thought  he  would  have  a  big  day.  The 
men  had  their  jugs  hid  in  the  bushes,  and  soon 
one  of  my  uncle's  and  Bill  Doyle  got  into  a  fight, 
just  out  under  some  trees,  then  while  Ben's 
attention  was  diverted,  the  men  run  in  at  the 
back  door  and  filled  up  their  jugs,  also  one  for 
each  of  the  combatants,  and  when  the  last  jug 
was  full  some  one  hollered:  "Part  'em."  They 
did  not  hardly  leave  Ben  whiskey  enough  to 
"drown  his  trouble." 


74 


N  our  early  boyhood  we  hardly  ever 
saw  a  buggy  and  there  were  not  many 
farmers  who  owned  a  wagon.  At  one 
time  there  was  to  be  a  spelling  contest 
between  our  school  and  one  five  miles  East  and 
we  was  bothered  to  decide  how  to  get  the  girls 
there;  but  a  day  or  two  before  the  time  for  the 
spelling,  there  came  a  deep  snow,  and  then  we 
knew  what  to  do;  we  had  a  very  large  yoke  of 
oxen,  we  would  hitch  them  to  the  big  sled  and 
we  would  have  room  for  all,  and  when  the  day 
came,  soon  afternoon,  we  hitched  up  and  started 
around  to  gather  up  our  load  of  boys  and  girls, 
and  when  we  got  them  crowded  closely  into  the 
sled,  we  found  we  had  room  for  all  only  two,  but 
we  knew  how  to  manage  that,  and  I  got  on  the 
back  of  old  Pete,  while  cousin  Frank  got  on  old 
Mike  and  we  struck  out;  but  before  we  got  there 
we  had  a  long  hill  to  go  down,  and  on  one  side 
there  was  a  pretty  deep  ditch  washed  out  and 


75 

when  we  started  down  the  hill  the  steers  got  to 
going  faster  and  faster,  and  when  we  saw  that 
we  were  running  into  that  ditch,  we  hollered 
"hoa",  and  the  steers  stopped  very  suddenly, 
while  we  "scooted"  over  their  heads  into  the 
deep  snow;  we  jumped  up  as  quick  as  we  could, 
and  looked  back,  the  sled  was  standing  up  on 
one  side,  while  the  boys  and  girls  were  piled  up 
in  that  ditch  three  feet  deep,  but  there  was  no 
one  hurt  much,  and  we  brushed  the  snow  off, 
and  got  there  just  at  dark.  Our  boys  and  girls 
kept  laughing  so,  that  we  found  it  necessary  to 

ask  leave  to  get  up  and  explain  what  they  were 
laughing  about.  I  told  it  as  funny  as  I  could, 
and  I  was  in  practice  then  for  telling  things 
funny;  I  also  tried  to  show  how  old  Pete  was 
standing,  w7hen  I  looked  around,  but  I  did  not 
have  legs  enough  to  show  it  just  right;  when  I 
got  through,  it  took  a  long  time  to  restore  order. 
When  we  had  spelled  for  a  long  time  and  all 
were  "spelled  dowrn"  on  both  sides,  except  our 
brother  Albert  on  our  side  and  Manda  Johnson 
on  their  side,  and  when  they  had  spelled  for  two 
hours,  and  neither  one  had  missed  a  word,  the 
judges  decided  to  call  it  a  "draw"  and  dismissed. 


76 


IT  one  time,  in  our  early  recollection, 
my  Father  bought  a  number  of  year- 
lings early  one  spring,  and  the  highest 
price  he  paid  was  three  dollars  a  head. 
He  kept  them  until  they  were  over  two  years  old, 
and  I  think  there  were  sixteen  steers  among 
them,  and  he  sold  the  steers  to  Irvin  Melton  for 
eight  dollars  a  head.  One  spring,  when  I  was 
a  small  boy,  he  sold  to  Wilson  Ferryman,  his 
cousin,  eight  cows  and  calves  for  eight  dollars 
each  —  sixty-four  dollars  for  all.  He  got  that  all 
in  silver  half-dollar?,  and  put  it  in  an  old  tin 

bucket  and  sat  it  up  on  the  cupboard,  and  the 
same  year,  about  September,  he  sold  to  John 
Selby  one  hundred  head  of  hogs  for  one  hundred 
dollars,  all  in  silver,  and  he  put  it  in  the  same 
bucket,  and  when  the  neighbor's  children  would 
come  over,  we  would  get  it  down  and  pour  it  out 
on  the  floor,  to  show  them  how  much  money  we 
had.  Finally  John  Hodson  borrowed  it  and 
entered  three  forties  of  land,  where  New  Hope 
now  stands. 


77 


lIXTY  Years  ago,  when  we  were  at 
wrork  in  the  field,  and  would  hear  the 
cranes,  out  on  the  prairie,  making  a 
great  noise,  we  knew  they  were  nest- 
ing. They  would  go  into  the  lakes  and  gather 
the  rushes  and  pile  them  up  very  much  like  a 
large  shock  of  hay,  so  that  it  would  come  above 
the  water,  then  they  would  make  a  little  flat 
place  on  top  and  deposit  two  eggs  on  that  flat 
place;  the  eggs  was  a  little  larger  than  a  goose 
egg,  while  they  were  shaped  just  like  a  quail's 
egg,  they  were  wrhite  in  color  with  small  brown 
specks  all  over  them.  When  we  could  get  a 
hat  full  of  prairie  hen's  eggs,  and  we  believe  no 
better  flavored  egg  can  be  found,  when  they 
were  boiled ,  then  with  a  dish  of  fresh  butter,  a 
boy  was  surely  fixed. 


|HH  Author  feels  very  proud  of  having 
had  the  good  influence  of  such  good 
friends  as  Pascal  Hinton,  James 
Rhoads,  Berry  Turner,  Jasper  L. 
Douthit,  Anthony  Thornton,  Henry  Carpenter, 
John  Kitchell,  Sylvester  Cosart,  and  many,  very 
many  others.  Some  of  them  are  gone,  but  we 
have  not  given  them  up.  The  influence  and 
friendship  of  such  men  has  made  our  pathway 
brighter,  and  has  made  life  worth  living;  and 
all  we  are  we  owe  it  to  the  influence  of  such 
good  friends. 


79 


is  the  greatest  attribute  of   God 
and  the  noblest  trait  of  man. 
Love  redeemed  the  world  and  brings 
salvation  to  men. 
Love  casts  out  all  fear,  and  purifies  the  heart. 
Love  rocks  the   cradle  of   virtue,    and   brings 
peace  to  the  nations. 

Love  tunes  the  song  of   the  lark,    and   paints 
the  rose. 

Love  indites  the  prayer,  and  speeds  the  answer. 
Love  tempers  the  storm  and  hallows  the  calm. 
Love  smiles  in  every  swelling  bud,  and  whis- 
pers in  every  passing  breeze. 

Love  softens  the  pillow  and  sweetens  the  dream. 

No  pen  can  ever  write, 
No  mind  can  ever  span 

The  length  and  breadth,  the  depth  and  height 
Of  the  love  of  God  to  man. 


8o 


cw 


HEN  I  and  Betsey  married  first, 

We  both  was  very  poor; 
When  work  was  very  scarce, sometimes 

The  wolf  got  near  the  door. 


And  Betsey  said:   "L,et's  buy  some  hens — 
"The  papers  say  'it  will  pay'; 

"I  think  you  had  better  look  around 
"And  buy  the  kind  that  lay." 

I  bought  a  dozen  plymouth  hens 

And  put  them  in  a  pen; 
When  Betsy  went  and  looked,  she  found 

An  egg  for  every  hen. 

"Whoopee!     I  know  just  what  to  do; 

"I'll  buy  a  dozen  more — 
"And  when  we  get  that  many  eggs, 

"We  are  not  so  very  poor." 


8i 


We  raised  a  hundred  hens  that  year; 

Next  year,  three  hundred  more — 
And  Betsy,  with  a  knowing  wink, 

Said,  "We  have  struck  it,  sure." 

We  don't  care  much  what  kind  we  have- 
There's  not  much  in  a  name; 

If  people  treat  their  chickens  right, 
They  "shell  out"  just  the  same. 

We  have  eleven  hundred  now, 
Blue,  yellow,  black  and  white; 

And  Betsy  says:   "Old  man,  I  think 
"They  are  mixed  up  now  just  right." 

And  late,  like  in  the  evening 

We  get  our  baskets  off  their  pegs, 

And  "hike  out"  in  the  chicken  yard 
To  gather  in  the  eggs. 

We  ship  two  cases  every  day; 

Oh,  my!  but  aint  it  funny? 
I  sit  around  and  read  the  news, 

And  Betsy  counts  the  money. 


82 


SHE  Human  family  is  restless  and  dis- 
£ff\  UJJl  contented;  constantly  in  quest  of 
JL  ffl  something,  and  know  not  what  that 
something  is.  There  is  an  aching 
void  in  the  mind,  which  men  are  constantly 
seeking  to  satisfy,  and  very  many  remedies  have 
bsen  tried  and  failed.  Some  have  tried  great 
wealth  and  it  has  failed;  some  have  tried  great 
learning,  and  it  has  failed;  some  have  tried 
fame,  and  it  has  failed;  some  have  resorted  to 
strong  drink,  and  it  has  failed;  also,  many  other 
things  have  been  tried  to  satisfy  that  void  and 
failed.  Man  is  out  of  his  element,  consequently 
unhappy.  Take  a  fish  out  of  the  water  and  it 
will  perish  and  die,  because  it  is  out  of  its  ele- 
ment. Man  was  created  for  peace  and  harmony 
with  his  God.  When  he  had  violated  the  law 
and  was  put  out  of  the  Garden,  he  lost  his  ele- 
ment; hence  this  restless,  unhappy  condition. 
Now,  he  may  be  represented  as  being  blind — in 


utter  darkness,  in  quest  of  something  and  knows 
not  what  it  is.  But  God,  in  His  Great  Mercy, 
has  put  a  remedy  within  our  reach;  an  efficient 
antidote  is  prepared  and  brought  to  your  door, 
and  not  only  so,  but  It  knocks  and  asks  admis- 
sion; It  comes  in  the  person  of  a  gentle,  loving 
Spirit,  whispering  in  accents  of  pity:  "Oh!  come 
to  me,  and  find  rest' ' ;  ever,  ever  calling,  calling: 
"Believe,  on  me,  and  %id  peace."  That  dear 
Holy  Ghost  comes  to  your  pillow  at  night.  ' '  Oh ! 
trust  in  Me  and  I  will  restore  you  to  your  proper 
element;  believe  in  Me  and  I  will  drive  away  all 
this  restless  discontent' ' .  Our  fathers  and  moth- 
ers, in  their  day,  heard  and  obeyed  this  same 
loving  call,  and  found  peace,  by  being  placed  in 
their  native  element — peace  with  God. 


Out  on  the  mountain,  cold  and  bare, 
With  restless  feet  we  roam; 

But  now,  we  come  with  humble  prayer: 
L,ord,  lead  us  safely  home. 


84 


SHE  Human  family  owe  allegiance  to 
three  great  powers — their  God,  their 
Country,  and  their  Home;  and  the 
three  are  so  inseparably  connected 
that  a  person  can  hardly  be  true  to  one  without 
being  true  to  all;  there  is  a  connecting  link  that 
binds  them  together.  We  owe  our  allegance  to 
God  because  He  is  the  author  of  our  existence, 
and  gives  us  all  the  untold  blessings  that  we 
enjoy,  and  to  Him  we  look  for  the  hope  of  a 
blessed  immortality  beyond  this  life,  and  by  Him 
we  enjoy  the  blessings  of  our  Country  and  our 
Home.  We  owe  allegiance  to  our  Country  be- 
cause by  it  we  enjoy  protection  in  our  life  and 
property;  it  guarantees  to  us  the  right  to  worship 
God  according  to  the  dictates  of  our  own  con- 
science, and  be  protected  in  our  Home.  And  to 
the  Home.  Oh!  how  shall  we  begin  the  Home? 
The  most  sacred  place  on  earth,  around  whose 
hearthstone  the  foundation  is  laid  for  the  weal 


8.S 


or  woe  of  the  Nation.  Oh!  say  not  the  Home  is 
not  a  power  of  all  earthly  powers;  the  Home  is 
the  nucleus,  the  Alpha  and  Omega,  the  biggest, 
biggest  word  pertaining  to  earthly  things,  spelled 
with  four  letters,  the  hand  is  too  feeble  to  write, 
and  the  tongue  is  too  feeble  to  tell,  and  the  brain 
is  too  feeble  to  conceive  all  the  meaning  there  is 
in  that  short  word — Home.  With  its  joys  and 
its  sorrows,  its  toils  and  repose,  its  smiles  and 
its  tears,  its  births  and  its  deaths,  its  cradle  and 
its  altar,  its  Bible  and  its  pillow,  its  bitter  and 
its  sweet,  its  precepts  and  its  examples.  When 
orators  and  poets  undertake  to  tell  all  the  mean- 
ing of  that  short  word,  let  them  pause  and  think, 
and  think,  and  think;  and  when  it  shall  have 

been  declared  that  Time  shall  be  no  more;  and 
when  the  last  trumpet  shall  have  sounded  and 
when  Angels  shall  have  tuned  their  harps  anew 
and  shall  have  struck  up  the  ever  new  glad  song 
of  redemption,  through  the  Blood;  and  when  the 
pearly  gates  shall  have  been  thrown  wide  open, 
to  welcome  the  redeemed  and  blood-washed 
throng  from  earth:  Oh!  then,  Home,  Home. 
Home  forever-more. 


86 


o| 


|EEP  In  the  heart  of  every  individual 
is  an  inclination  to  be  good  and  to  do 
good,  but  sometimes  that  good  desire 
is  so  counteracted  by  some  evil  in- 
fluence, that  the  poor  individual  unfortunately 
drifts  into  ruin.  The  doctrine  of  total  depravity 
is  all  a  mistake.  The  poor  criminal  often  be- 
comes so  by  the  influences  which  are  brought  to 
bear  upon  his  mind;  and  the  good  people  are 
often,  more  or  less,  responsible  for  his  ruin,  for 
their  indifference  and  lack  of  diligence  in  trying 
to  win  him  back  to  the  path  of  honesty  and 
justice.  The  people  who  are  good  need  not  take 
the  praise  to  themselves,  for  they  do  not  know 
what  they  would  have  done  under  certain  other 
environments  and  influences;  and  often  the  poor 
criminal  is  more  to  be  pitied  than  blamed;  often 
in  an  unguarded  moment  he  does  things  which 
he  had  no  thought  of  doing,  and  he  would  then 
give  his  life  to  call  it  back.  And  when  our 


neighbor  goes  to  the  bad,  let  us,  instead  of 
exulting  over  his  fall,  rather  shed  a  tear  for  him, 
and  think,  maybe,  I  have  not  done  my  duty  to 
save  him.  But,  fortunately,  in  our  country,  the 
good  is  so  much  greater  than  the  bad,  and  the 
good  influence  so  prevails  over  the  bad,  that 
God  still  deals  with  us  in  mercy,  and  sends  the 
seedtime  and  harvest,  and  our  people  are  a 
prosperous  and  happy  people. 


^jc^yua-  C-o/^eo  ^ov  2)Tte. 


KNOW  that  my  Redeemer  lives, 
I  know  He  cares  for  me; 

I  know  He  full  salvation  gives, 
I  know  He  sets  me  free. 


Why  should  I  murmer  or  repine, 
While  on  life's  stormy  sea; 

Since  God  is  with  me  all  the  time, 
And  Jesus  cares  for  me. 

Even  in  a  dark  and  stormy  night 

Though  threatening  clouds  I  see; 

This  thought  brings  comfort  and  delight 
That  Jesus  cares  for  me. 

Each  day  I  hear  His  gentle  call: 
Saying,  "Believe  on  me"; 

And  since  He  notes  each  sparrow's  fall 
I  know  He  cares  for  me. 


89 


;HE  Extreme  greed  for  wealth  comes 
nearer  threatening  the  overthrow  of 
this  Government  than  any  one  thing. 
The  disregard  for  law  is  the  result  of 
greed.  The  saloon  is  the  child  of  greed.  Money 
sharks  have  been  very  diligent  in  agitating  all 
the  party  prejudice  they  can,  for  they  know  that 
if  the  voters  lay  down  their  love  for  party  name, 
they  will  work  and  vote  together  intelligently  to 
overthrow  the  great  wrongs,  and  there  will  be  a 
leveling  up,  and  that  class  legislation  wrill  have 
to  go,  and  the  liquor  traffic  will  have  to  go,  and 
equal  rights  will  prevail.  The  people  are  in- 
telligent enough  to  know  their  wrongs,  but  they 
are  so  completely  bound  hand  and  foot  by  their 
party  name,  that  they  cannot  help  themselves. 
They  know  that  the  issues,  which  the  leaders  of 
the  parties,  have  kept  the  voters  divided  upon 
for  many  years,  was  only  "sham"  issues,  and 
not  the  real  issues  at  all.  The  voters  of  this 


90 

country  are  intelligent  on  ever}-  other  question, 
but  almost  hopelessly  insane  on  the  question  of 
party.  There  is  no  question  now  for  which  lec- 
turers are  needed  so  much.  If  you  kill  the  foolish 
blind  party  prejudice,  the  same  stroke  will  kill 
every  public  wrong  which  exists  in  our  land. 
We  think  we  have  some  pretty  good  reasons  to 
hope  that  the  great  wrongs  will  be  righted  within 
a  few  years;  but  there  are  no  good  reasons  why 
they  should  not  be  righted  within  a  few  months. 


91 


F  traveling  through  this  vale  of  tears, 
We  saw  no  better  world  than  this; 

If  looking  on  through  endless  years 
We  caught  no  ray  of  Heavenly  bliss. 


Where  could  we  go,  to  comfort  find, 

Or  what  could  then  our  spirits  cheer; 

Still  groping  on  in  darkness,  blind 

With  sin  and  sorrow,  everywhere. 

But,  oh!  our  destiny  is  not  sealed 

In  bitter  anguish,  death  and  gloom; 

For  God,  has  in  His  word  revealed 
A  better  world,  beyond  the  tomb. 

This  thought,  will  give  us  joy  and  peace, 
While  plodding  on,  in  toils  and  cares, 

Knowing  well  we'll  have  a  sweet  release; 
And  Christ  will  wipe  away  our  tears. 


Then  goodbye  sorrow,  goodbye  pain. 

Goodbye  to  all  our  doubts  and  fears, 

For  He,  who  died  and  rose  again 

Will  smile  and  wipe  away  our  tears. 

L/et  storms  arise;  and  billows  roll, 

We'll  battle  on,  our  three-score  years — 

This  thought's  an  anchor  to  our  soul, 

That  Christ  will  wipe  away  our  tears. 

So  glad,  our  destiny  is  not  sealed 

In  bitter  anguish,  death  and  gloom — 

For  God  has,  in  His  word  revealed 
A  better  world,  beyond  the  tomb. 


93 


Men  and  Women  study  and 
counsel,  what  is  best  to*  do  for  the 
good  of  our  people.  And  after  a  good 
deal  of  thinking,  the  writer  concludes 
that  there  is  nothing  more  potent  for  the  safety 
of  our  Nation,  than  the  family  altar.  Wise  men 
have  written  on  every  other  subject,  and  writers 
have  seemed  to  overlook  the  family  altar.  The 
strength  of  the  Nation  is  derived  from  the  homes; 
and  if  the  homes  are  good,  the  Nation  is  good. 
If  the  homes  are  bad,  the  Nation  is  bad.  It  is 
hard  for  the  homes  to  be  right  good  without  the 
family  altar.  So  the  safety  of  the  Nation  depends 
greatly  upon  the  family  altar.  It  is  a  guard 
against  the  temptations  which  surround  us.  It 
prepares  the  mind  for  that  which  is  good,  and  is 
an  efficient  antidote  for  our  sins  and  our  sorrows. 
The  future  life  of  the  child  depends  very  greatly 
upon  the  family  altar.  God  bless  the  family 
altar. 


94 

Sacrifice. 

WAS  one  of  the  characteristics  of  the 
early  settlers  to  love  one  another,  and 
we  love  to  think  of  the  many  noble  men 
and  women  who  made  great  sacrifices 
for  their  fellow-man;  but  none  could  ever  come 
up  with  Jasper  L.  Douthit.  Having  been  brought 
to  Illinois,  by  his  parents,  when  a  very  small 
boy,  one  of  the  first  things  he  seemed  to  learn 
was  self-sacrifice  for  others.  He  caught  the 
Spirit  of  Love  to  others, and  outstripped  any  man 
in  Illinois.  No  man  in  Illinois  has  made  such 
self-sacrifice  for  others  as  Jasper  L,.  Douthit. 
He  has  given  his  whole  life  for  others.  He  is  a 
Unitarian  preacher,  and  he  is  not  only  Unitarian 
in  name,  but  if  people  serve  the  God  whom  his 
mother  taught  him  to  serve,  whether  Methodist 
or  Baptist,  or  any  other  denomination,  he  loves 
them  just  the  same.  So  he  is  a  real  Unitarian. 
When  he  has  been  persecuted  by  the  people, who 
did  not  understand  him,  he  worked  on,  and  his 


95 

actions  said:  "Father  forgive  them,  they  know 
not  what  they  do";  and  his  great  big  heart  over- 
flowing with  love,  he  sought  to  do  them  good. 
Few  men  have  had  better  opportunities  to  know 
him  than  \ve  have;  and  Jasper  is  as  able  to  cope 
with  the  intricate  problems  of  statesmanship  as 
almost  any  man  in  the  land,  and  yet  simple  as  a 
child.  If  he  sees  you  in  trouble,  his  eyes  will 
fill  with  tears.  Now,  in  his  old  age,  he  is  the 
hardest  working  man  we  ever  knew.  He  is  no 
lover  of  money,  and  when  he  makes  money  it 
just  goes,  with  the  overflowing  of  his  heart,  for 
the  good  of  others. 


96 


IE  BELIEVE  there  is  no  wrong  in  our 
good  country  so  potent  in  perpetuat- 
ing evil,  as  the  party  prejudice  of  the 
voters.  The  prejudice  for  political 
party  is  what  makes  possible  every  great  wrong 
which  exists  in  our  land.  The  voters  would  vote 
together,  intelligently,  to  correct  every  wrong 
were  it  not  for  their  prejudice  for  their  party. 
When  one  political  party  takes  a  stand  for  a  good 
thing,  the  other  party  makes  it  their  business  to 
oppose  them.  The  corruption  which  existed  in 
the  state  of  Missouri,  never  could  have  existed 
only  for  the  party  prejudice.  The  disregard  for 
law,  which  has  given  the  President  so  much 
trouble,  and  cost  so  much  money,  would  have 
been  nipped  in  the  bud,  only  for  the  party  prej- 
udice. The  American  voter  is  intelligent  on 
every  other  subject,  but  on  the  subject  of  political 
party,  he  is  deplorably  insane.  They  do  not 
vote  so  much  for  men  and  principle,  but  are 


97 

blindly  governed  by  party  name.  You  kill  the 
foolish  blind  party  prejudice  and  the  same  stroke 
kills  every  great  political  wrong  in  our  land. 
Each  party  will  go  down  into  the  dirt  to  court 
the  friendship  of  every  low,  dirty  element  who 
has  a  vote.  Kill  the  party  prejudice  and  law- 
lessness and  anarchy  will  have  to  hide  their 
deformed  faces.  When  it  is  found  that  a  man  is 
not  willing  to  obey  the  laws  of  this  good  country 
a  committee  should  wait  upon  him  and  tell  him 
that  the  sooner  he  packs  his  trunks  the  better. 
We  have  a  class  of  rich,  aristocratic  anarchists 
who  want  to  run  this  Government;  then  we  have 
a  class  of  low,  ignorant  and  dirty  anarchists  at 
the  tail  end,  and  the  country  \vould  be  better  off 
without  either.  The  American  people  are  a 
country  loving  people,  and  they  want  to  do  right 
and  vote  right;  but  the.ir  love  of  party  has  such 
complete  control  over  them  that  they  cannot 
always  do  right;  but  they  must  say  and  do  what 
their  party  leaders  say  for  them  to  do.  The  party 
leaders  give  us  issues  to  contend  over  and  keep 
us  divided,  which  we  know  are  not  the  issues. 
So  the  love  for  political  party  is  the  mother  of 
every  great  public  wrong  which  exists,  and  it  is 
the  only  thing  which  makes  possible  every  public 
wrong. 


98 


el  vv  te 


c  e. 


E  BELIEVE  there  is  no  evil  in  our 
land  so  great  as  the  use  of  intoxicat- 
ing liquors.  No  evil  is  causing  so 
much  sorrow,  so  many  tears,  blighting 
so  many  bright  hopes  and  sunny  prospects, 
breaking  up  so  many  happy  homes.  We  punish 
the  robber  by  the  law,  and  no  robber  can  com- 
pare with  the  Robber  Intemperance.  He  robs 
the  home  of  its  sanctity  and  its  joys;  it  robs  the 
brain  of  its  power  and  its  intelligence;  it  robs 
the  heart  of  its  love  and  its  emotions;  it  robs  the 
man  of  his  manliness  and  reduces  him  to  a  level 
with  the  brute;  it  robs  youth  of  its  hopes  and  its 
prospects;  it  robs  childhood  of  everything  which 
makes  for  comfort  and  happiness.  We  furnish 
the  murder  by  law.  No  murderer  is  so  cold- 
blooded as  is  intemperance.  It  murders  one 
hundred  thousand  American  citizens  annually. 
If  an  epidemic  were  to  break  out,  like  smallpox, 
cholera,  or  yellow  fever,  which  was  destroying 


99 


half  as  many  lives  our  authorities  would  quaran- 
tine against  it  very  quickly,  and  would  spend 
millions  of  dollars,  if  need  be,  to  stop  the  devas- 
tation, while  that  which  intemperance  is  making 
no  great  notice  is  taken,  for  if  we  do,  we  will 
hurt  our  party,  for  the  whisky  element  will  vote 
with  the  other  party.  Now,  gentle  reader,  isn't 
it  better  to  stand  for  the  right,  for  God  and  the 
home,  and  for  the  country?  even  at  the  risk  of 
being  defeated  in  the  election,  than  to  stand  for 
wrong  in  order  to  carry  the  election.  Think  of 
gray  heads  going  to  their  graves  in  sorrow,  be- 
cause intemperance  has  ruined  their  children, 
and  your  vote  helped  to  cause  that  ruin.  Think 
of  the  men  who  are  now  in  the  various  state 
prisons,  and  your  vote  helped  to  put  them  there. 
Think  of  the  oceans  of  tears  that  wives  and 
mothers  have  shed,  and  your  vote  helped  to 
cause  those  tears.  Think  of  the  hunger  and  cold 
that  little  innocent  children  have  suffered,  and 
your  vote  helped  to  cause  that  suffering.  Look 
at  that  little  innocent  boy  and  think  that  maybe 


100 


that  little  boy  will  fill  a  drunkard's  grave,  and 
my  vote  will  help  to  cause  it  so,  because  of  my 
love  for  my  beloved  party.  Look  at  the  little 
innocent  girl,  and  think  maybe,  that  little  girl 
is.  to  be  the  wife  of  a  drunkard,  and  that  my  vote 
helped  to  cause  it  so,  for  the  sake  of  my  party. 
Dear  reader,  let  me  appeal  to  you  :  Why  should 
we  rate  political  party  above  every  other  con- 
sideration? Oh!  the  cruel  monster,  intemperance. 

No  pen  can  ever  write  the  enormity  of  his  crimes. 
No  orator's  tongue  can  ever  tell  the  magnitude 
of  his  guilt.  Like  a  vile  serpent,  he  tightens  his 
slimy  coils  around  everything  that  is  noble  and 
good,  of  American  institutions  and  American 
manhood.  No  place  on  earth  is  too  sacred  for 
his  poisonous  fangs.  No  hopes  or  prospects  are 
too  bright  for  his  blighting  and  withering  influ- 
ence. Oh!  let  us  arise  in  our  manhood  and  bury 
him  so  deep  that  there  will  be  no  possibility  of 
his  resurrection.  How  I  would  like  to  be  one  of 
the  pall-bearers  and  help  to  bear  him  to  his  last 
resting  place.  Then  a  shout  of  joy  would  go  up; 
a  shout  such  as  was  never  heard  on  the  earth. 
A  shout  from  the  throats  of  millions  of  wronged 
and  oppressed  mothers  and  children.  A  shout 
of  "peace  on  earth,  good  will  to  men!" 


101 


Sab  Si  g  fit 


EAR  Wife,  I've  seen  the  saddest  sight, 

I  ever  yet  have  seen; 
A  mother  begging  at  a  gate. 

She  looked  so  pale  and  lean. 


She  had  three  children,  by  her  side, 
Their  clothes  were  old  and  poor; 

She  said  her  husband  came  home  drunk, 
And  turned  them  from  the  door. 

The  little  children  had  no  shoes, 

And  they  were  nearly  froze. 
She  said:   "The  trouble  I  have  had 

There  is  nobody  knows." 

She  said:     "I  work  most  night  and  day," 
And  this,  too,  is  what  she  said: 

"Most  all  my  wages  go  for  drink, 
"And  the  children  cry  for  bread." 


102 


She  said:     "I  don't  know  what  to  do, 

"We  have  no  place  to  go; 
"I  know  the  children  can't  live  long 

"Out  in  this  sleet  and  snow." 

"I  know  they  are  very  hungry, 

"And,  I  know  they  are  very  cold," 

She  said:     "My  man  drinks  all  the  time, 
"And  all  our  things  are  sold." 

"He  often  cries,  and  talks  to  me, 

"And  says  it  is  a  shame — 
"And  he  tries  so  hard  to  quit  it, 

"That  I  know  he  is  not  to  blame." 

"I  never  say  a  word  to  him, 

"It  would  only  make  things  worse — 
"The  men  who  vote  it  in  his  road, 

"Are  the  men  I  blame  the  worst." 


103 


fi-e 


JHE  Author  of  this  little  book  has  had 
a  pretty  happy  life.  We  have  had 
the  same  difficulties  to  contend  with 
that  other  people  have  had,  but  we 
knew  the  bright  side  of  things  was  the  best  side 
to  look  at,  and  we  believe  we  have  been  able  to 
see  a  brighter  side  to  most  things  than  most  of 
the  people  have.  Most  everything  that  conies 
in  our  road  has  a  bright  side  to  it,  if  we  are  only 
able  to  see  that  bright  side.  If  we  are  seeking 
to  do  right,  that  fact,  of  itself,  turns  the  dark 
side  of  the  picture  to  the  wall,  and  beautiful 
fields,  singing  birds,  and  blooming  flowers  are 
ours.  If  the  readers  of  our  little  book  would 
only  cast  off  their  unnecessary  gloom  and  fore- 
bodings, the  world  would  be  brighter  and  happier 
and  the  people  would  be  healthier  and  happier, 
and  they  would  live  a  great  deal  longer. 


104 


,  Gentle  Reader,  we  bid  you  good- 
bye, wishing  you  much  happiness 
and  peace,  and  hoping  you  have  been 
interested  in  reading  the  little  book, 
and  that  you  have  read  something  in  it  which 
will  do  you  good,  that  you  may  be  the  better 
prepared  for  the  battles  of  life  and  for  great  use- 
fulness to  others.  That  you  will  pardon  whatever 
mistakes  you  have  found;  and  that  you  will  retain 
a  kind  feeling  for  the  author;  that  when  we  meet, 
we  may  have  a  real,  warm  hand-shake,  and  that 
we  may  thus  get  better  acquainted,  and  love 
each  other  more.  Good-bye. 

THE  AUTHOR. 


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